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Wednesday, January 20, 2010

God Will Rejoice Over Blessing You or Destroying You

Deuteronomy 28:63 And it shall come to pass, that as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you; so the LORD will rejoice over you to destroy you, and to bring you to nought; and ye shall be plucked from off the land whither thou goest to possess it.

Here before us this morning is a "deeper" verse that deserves our consideration today. As Moses is teaching Israel that it is up to them whether they receive a blessing or a cursing, many will make a flippant response to what we have read today and say something to the effect of, "The God of the Jew...or, the God of the Old Testament...or, the Christian God is an ugly, vengeful person." But that is not the truth that this verse is portraying.

Let me start by quoting a couple of Bible scholars of old on why Jehovah (when the name LORD is in all caps in the KJV, it refers to God's name Jehovah) would rejoice in destroying them:

John Gill - His justice would be glorified, and the honour of his laws preserved.

Matthew Henry - Justice appears no less illustrious, asserting of his own honour and the securing of the ends of his government.

John Wesley - The exercise of all his attributes must needs please him, else he were not perfectly happy.

Moses is trying to remove any false confidence from Israel in the mercy of God. You will remember that the generation of Israel that left Egypt took the mercy of God for granted. After they chose to believe the 10 spies and their poor report, God told them that they would die in the wilderness and not enter into the Promised Land. After God made this proclamation, they ran to the top of the mountain to seek the Lord's forgiveness, but it was too late. Judgment had already came.

What Moses is telling the next generation is that if they chose the path of their father's, God's just indignation against them will be so great that it will be a pleasure for Him to take vengeance on them. Let's not make a mistake here: God does not delight in the death of a sinner in itself, yet He does delight in glorifying His justice upon incorrigible sinners.

We praise the Lord for His mercy and grace - but we cannot abuse it as so many do today. It should be our priority to live a life that causes the Lord to rejoice over us and to do good for us.